Allan Roth Chapter meeting recap - 6/1/2013

On June 1, 2013, 36 SABR members and guests met in Los Angeles for an Allan Roth Chapter meeting.

Former major leaguer Chris Donnels spoke for 90 minutes about his college career at Loyola Marymount, his College World Series experience, the culture shock that resulted from his minor league assignments in Tennessee and Mississippi, his major league career, and his four years in Japan. One of his teammates was Ichiro Suzuki, who was so popular in Japan that he could not go out in public.

George Genovese, the scout who first recommended Donnels, discussed his brief major league career with the Senators and his preference for the Pacific Coast League. He talked about how he had saved the careers of Jesus Alou and Bobby Bonds by assuring the Giants that these players had the talent to play.

Stuart Banner, UCLA law professor, presented his book The Baseball Trust. He reviewed the major supreme court decisions on baseball and talked about his research at the Hall of Fame.

Larry Tye offered copies of his book Satchel for sale and briefly touched on the highlights of Satchel’s career.

Michael Maleta presented a compelling argument for using batter faced rather than innings pitched when calculating pitching statistics.

Andy McCue explained why the Pacific Coast League’s plan to become a major league never developed. He pointed out the limited resources of the PCL owners and their fear that a major league team would move to the West Coast.